The coolest ballet campaign of the year. We keep on crossing our fingers & sending positive vibes for Mayerling to be part of ABT’s repertory someday. We’d definitely cross the Atlantic to see Marcelo Gomes as Crown Prince Rudolf.

We love uncovering mysteries à la Sherlock Holmes / Dr. Gregory House. Divalicious prima ballerina decides she doesn’t like the score for her Swan Lake 3rd Act solo and asks Ludwig Minkus to write another one. This in turn bothers the original composer, a certain Mr. Tchaikovsky, who then writes a second version which never makes it to the final cut after all. Complicated? This could very well yield material for a soap opera.

Once upon a time our favorite ballet critic, Mr. Clement Crisp, went on a trip to Canada to see a triple bill composed entirely of new ballets, something sadly unthinkable in our neck of the woods. He met the Toronto ballet audience & spoke about what can be done to ensure the future of ballet. We were left very jealous…

While Eurostar #FAIL would have surely prevented us from celebrating a balletic Xmas in Paris this year, this post provided us a much needed insight into the pick and mix of POB‘s casting. We are very curious about the darkest of all Nutcrackers and we might be more than tempted next December when the Mariinsky will also be in town. The post also offers a witty description of a certain Bolshoi star who has a habit of hanging on to theatre curtains.

We love graphic novels, comic books and movie adaptations of both. We also often imagine deathmatches between our favorite ballet stars… if only we could pitch this idea to MTV. In this very funny post Eric Taub imagines Ballet dancers as drawn by famous comic book artists.

She is one of the most glamorous things to have happened to ballet. Just as gossip started to circulate that she would leave ABT she turned the tables on the rumour mill and bagged a promotion for Principal and a spot on David Letterman. May she long continue to fascinate us.

Interviews – Three fabulous leading dancers with each of the Mariinsky, the Royal Ballet and ABT. Three very distinct personalities which resulted in very different interviews. We hope you enjoyed them as much as we did. We are crossing our fingers for more.

Grace – This was a tough cookie. Someone asked in our Facebook group if we could write something about the ballerina’s grace. It was hard to put a subjective concept into words but we really liked the final product, not least because it gave us a chance to quote from Pride and Prejudice.

For a while we have been meaning to write something here about “ballet myth busters”, to address certain preconceptions about this art form often seen as inaccessible, stuffy and niche. David Bintley’s Cyrano might be just what we needed to illustrate how ballet can be demystified. Created two years ago for Birmingham Royal Ballet, it shows that story-based ballets can be fresh, funny and accessible and that classical dancing need not always be centered around tutu-clad ballerinas.

Taking Edmond Rostand’s well-known play and staying close to its text, Bintley’s ballet narrows down the gap between theatre and dance. For starters the costumes are not what you would expect: plenty of ruffles, French breeches and big boots for the men and Romantic, Toile-de-Jouy-chic, for the heroine Roxane. Unlike the formality of classics Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty, there’s something unceremonious and inviting about the way the audience can see various characters strolling onstage and preparing to watch the “performance within the performance” as they take their seats, it’s almost like a levelling of the playing field.

Robert Parker’s Cyrano is sympathetically played, with equal measures of tragedy and comedy. As in the play, the sad story of continued stoicism in the face of unrequited love is counterbalanced with plenty of humour. In a scene at Ragueneau’s Bakery, the bakers spoof the Sleeping Beauty’s Rose Adagio with baguettes and tartelettes in lieu of Aurora’s roses. In another moment our antihero Cyrano uses hilarious diversion tactics to cover up the secret wedding between Roxane and Christian, keeping rival De Guiche away.

Cyrano pretends to be a stranger with fantastic tales about the moon. I read afterwards that this episode of Rostand’s play is inspired by the real Cyrano de Bergerac who had written a work entitled The Other World: Society and Government of the Moon, considered one of the earliest science fiction compositions. This peculiar scene could easily fall into camp but Bintley manages to make Cyrano’s dancing while wearing a glass light globe over his head both wacky and dignified.

Bintley can get Romantic too. He fully conveys Cyrano’s gift for poetry and love letters through dance and sometimes mime, both beautifully realised by Robert Parker. The various pas de deux between Roxane (Elisha Wilis) and Christian (Iain Mackay, ex-BRB now guesting from Corella Ballet) are full of “head over heels in love” intricate lifts to represent the young lovers’ passion, with full credit here to Mackay’s excellent partnering skills.

In addition to the central characters there are great roles for BRB’s male soloists such as Ragueneau the baker (Christopher Larsen) and Cyrano’s cadet friend Le Bret, danced by the marvellous Chi Cao. Marion Tait‘s character part as Roxane’s jovial duenna is also a class act. If I had one wish, it would be for stronger female choreography as Roxane’s solos are very marked by attitude turns. But just as I start to notice this, Bintley puts Roxane into bravura mode. She bursts into battle camp cross dressed as a “soldier” in the final act and dances a sequence of typical male steps including some lovely pirouettes à la seconde. I should have seen it coming. Cyrano is most definitely a myth busting ballet.

It is interesting to discover how choreographers find inspiration for a new piece and how they bring their ideas alive through dance. When David Bintley first announced he would do a ballet inspired by a physics equation, E=mc2, many were puzzled. How could Bintley turn an abstract mathematical statement into a ballet?

While there is no need to know about physics or Relativity to appreciate the piece, there is more to Bintley’s imaginative dancing than meets the eye and as I have the advantage of a high energy physics background, all those scientific references certainly added to my enjoyment:

In Energy, for instance, Bintley plays with Faraday’s idea of curling lines generated from a magnet’s interaction with electric currents so dancers curl their arms and hands throughout. An almost bare stage, a central projected strip of clouds, the piece starts with a bang and the corps de ballet come in and out, filling all the space, making swirling patterns to the pitching music. His choreographic framework is clearly Faraday’s engine: using the current of a power source near a dangling wire to charge a magnet Faraday visualised circular lines coming from it, which could “sweep” the wire and induce it to rotate magnetically as does the screw in the video below:

The swirling corps de ballet is to Bintley’s choreography what the circular magnetic lines are to Faraday, the main couple – Joseph Caley and Elisha Willis – acting as the dangling wire as they rotate around the ensemble of dancers and around each other in beautiful turns and pirouettes, with their burst of energy also echoing the electric currents printed in the costumes designed by Kate Ford.

Strikingly different Mass, with its shades of brown and a moody, melancholic violin score, revolves around three groups, each with two men and a woman, plus a central pas de deux for Gaylene Cummerfield and Matthew Lawrence. The women are lifted and moved around slowly, indicating heaviness, the influence of gravity and mass over every physical object. The focus on bodies and the various ways in which they can be used to create geometry (for instance the iconic image of the three lifted dancers in a triangle) as well as the various balances taken by the dancers across the stage all point to Lavoisier’s studies on mass conservation and his conclusions on the weight of substances before and after a chemical reaction. Bintley also reminds us of the connection between mass and energy when later on these dancers enter forming a compact mass, moving as a whole with their hands curling in the same way as the previous group.

The interlude brings a red square of light in the background, a dancing white geisha and thunderous sound which develops into an explosion. This may be a short section but references to the atomic bombs and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could not be more direct. Though visually impacting I thought that Bintley could have done without this section, not least because it logically should have come after Celeritas2, although logic in this case would have made for a grim finale and I much prefer the dazzler we got.

A background wall of lights directed to the audience, with the dancers playfully running and doing grand jetés from the sides lead us to closing piece Celeritas2 (latin for swiftness) which uses notions of speed and wave-particle duality exhibited by light. Bintley reminds us that light waves are nothing but electricity and magnetism forever chasing each other in space, just like first soloist Alexander Campbell and principal Carol-Anne Millar when they “play catch” and switch between front and back, with oscillating movements.

Bintley reserves his most visually stunning trick for a climatic end which uses the ensemble of the corps. Looking at light in terms of particles he builds rows of dancers in non-stop soft soubresauts. The dancers propagate their light in waves from the front row all the way to the last, each individually a photon, a “light” particle and collectively a “wave” of dance going all the way to the back of the stage. The ensemble suddenly stops and only then does the main couple break to the sides, in mind-blowing chaîné turns. He could not have devised a more crowd-pleasing, applause-generating number closer.

Overall E=mc2 does an excellent job of translating a deep and abstract mathematical concept, the result of the work of an outstanding group of thinkers, into dance. The meaning of each movement was made clear through the choreography, by Peter Mumford’s remarkable use of lighting and via the enjoyable score from Australian composer Matthew Hindson. While the piece looks modern and fresh the steps are pure classical ballet which will allow it to live in the repertoire for many years to come.

Bintley’s new piece was bookended by the work of two Australian choreographers, Stanton Welch and Garry Stewart. Welch’s Powder, set to Mozart’s luscious Clarinet Concerto in A minor, had cheeky muses playing around with mere mortals. Whilst Mozart is not the easiest composer to dance to there are many bright points, such as the sequences for male dancers which evoked four greek marble statues coming to life through synchronised jumps and balances (special mentions to Yasuo Atsuji and Joseph Caley) – and in the elegant pas de deux between Robert Parker and Natasha Oughtred.

It is impossible to look at the shape (dancers extending through rows of linear lights) and sound (strong/electronic beat) of Stewart’s The Centre and its Opposite and not think of Forsythe‘s In the Middle Somewhat Elevated. But while the choreography is not very original it is certainly diverse in the interchange between modern extreme extensions and standard classical ballet combinations: deep grand pliés with arms on fifth, adagio dancing (developpés going into a attitude en promenade and balances on arabesque) and a sequence of petit allegro steps (jeté, jeté, glissade, changements). I find Stewart’s use of a large group of dancers well judged since it allows many younger artists to appear alongside more established principals, with some fantastic dancing from young promises Dusty Button (a crazy balance that went for ages), Aonghus Hoole and Christopher Rodgers-Wilson, as well as the elegant Robert Parker, who made the most of his beautiful classical line in a different, surprising context.

This was a well-thought triple bill, which showed the diversity of the company and a new work which is sure to become a staple. It also served as a perfect showcase not only for the company’s stars but also for their corps members. With all the pieces making the most of BRB’s ensemble, we have proof that in ballet as in nature, one really needs to gather mass to generate huge amounts of energy!

As the season kicks off Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB), one of the UK’s top three ballet companies, celebrates its 20th anniversary as a Birmingham resident. Over the years it has evolved from being the Royal Ballet‘s “touring arm” into shaping its own style: a mix of core repertoire alongside new original full-length narrative ballets, showing a degree of experimentation and risk taking uncommon to big ballet companies. Here we look at the past and present of this unique company:

History

As the name indicates, the Birmingham Royal Ballet is historically linked to the Royal Ballet. They both originated in 1926 when Ninette de Valois founded the Academy of Choreographic Art, her first step towards creating a ballet company with a supporting school. Through Lilian Baylis and her theatres, The Sadler’s Wells and the Old Vic, de Valois found a way to give her company a base and by 1931 she had established the Vic-Wells Ballet and Vic-Wells Ballet School at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre.

In 1939 both company and school lost the “Vic” tags to better align with their base at Sadler’s Wells, but the subsequent destruction of Sadler’s Theatre during the war dislodged the company and forced it to become a touring troupe known as the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. The end of the war saw the company’s return to the refurbished theatre until its split into two in 1946: the main company and school moving to a new home at the Royal Opera House (eventually becoming the Royal Ballet) and a smaller sister company – the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet – created to handle touring performances under the supervision of artistic director John Field.

This sister company would later become the Birmingham Royal Ballet but at this point it continued to change and accrue different names. From 1955 to 1977, having left its base at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre to perform in theatres all around the country, it was known as the Royal Ballet Touring Company. A Royal Charter had been granted to recognize the company’s independence and status but it still functioned as a touring “branch” of the Royal Ballet. By 1970 the company had effectively regained its base at Sadler’s Wells so in 1977, with the arrival of Sir Peter Wright as artistic director, it was renamed Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet.

The Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet finally became the Birmingham Royal Ballet when it relocated to Birmingham in 1990, following an invitation by the Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre and the Birmingham City Council. Peter Wright continued as their Artistic Director until 1995. He was succeeded by choreographer David Bintley, who put his focus into creating an independent company which could be dissociated from the Royal Ballet and in 1997 the BRB finally became independent from the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet. Despite this separation, the company still shares a common repertoire with the latter and many of its dancers have emerged from the Royal Ballet School, although the BRB now has its own associated dance academy in the Elmhurst School of Dance.

In addition to performing at home, the BRB regularly visits some of the most important stages around the UK such as the London Coliseum, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Symphony Hall, The Lowry, etc. It also continues to increase its international presence after successful tours around the US, Hong Kong and South Africa.

Given their shared origins the BRB style has common elements with the Royal Ballet’s: in their repertoire, with plenty of narrative ballets, and in dancers who are able to emphasize drama and theatricality when performing those. AD David Bintley has furthered the company’s range by continuously creating or commissioning new pieces, with particular focus on the difficult genre of narrative ballet. He has created ten full-length story based ballets (with half of them having been created for BRB and most of them still in repertoire), of which the most successful have captivated audiences and continue to attract new ones. In contrast, the Royal Ballet’s investment in full-length original commissions has been slimmer, the last one having been Twyla Tharp‘s 1995 A Worldly Wise and the next one, Christopher Wheeldon’sAlice in Wonderland, currently announced and planned for the 2011 season.

In an ever more globalized ballet world, BRB seems to be creating its own history, developing its own character. It has shown to be a daring company which is capable of attracting regular audiences with original works. Instead of bringing predictable classics (e.g. Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, etc.) on tours around the country, they aim to keep a balance with many works by the great 20th century choreographers, such as Ashton, Balanchine, Cranko, de Valois, MacMillan, Robbins and Tudor. With such a pick’n’mix, it is no wonder their fanbase keeps growing.

Through its association with the Elmhulst School of Dance, BRB aims to develop its own talent to feed into the company’s ranks, but plenty of dancers come from other vocational schools such as the Royal Ballet School or internationally, as is the case with Principal dancers Nao Sakuma (Japan), Chi Cao (China), Elisha Willis (Australia), César Morales (Chile) and Ambra Vallo (Italy). Given its continuous flux of new ballets, the company attracts many dancers interested in having roles created on them.